Vivyan Adair, the Elihu Root Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women's Studies, wrote the featured op-ed in the Syracuse Post-Standard (March 11, 2007). Adair's op-ed, "The Flaw in Welfare Reform," details the effects of welfare reform since Congress passed the 1996 Personal and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act. Adair wrote that welfare reform advocates called the program a success. "Indeed, as a result of reform, the number of families receiving cash benefits plummeted by 60 percent in 10 years," Adair wrote. "However, as a recent Associated Press study makes clear, reform pushed people into work but not toward self-sufficiency."
Adair, who founded the ACCESS Project at Hamilton, which assists low-income parents in obtaining a higher education, notes "As a former welfare recipient who escaped poverty through higher education, and as a researcher and educator, I argue that if the goal of welfare reform was to move poor single mothers toward self-sufficiency, the program has not been a success." She contends that having the ability and support to obtain an education is crucial to lifting people out of poverty. "Access to post-secondary education permanently changed my capacity to think clearly, critically and creatively; my ability to care for my family; my commitment to citizenship; and my sense of responsibility to the world around me," Adair wrote.
